The baseball metaphors were theirs. I just thought I'd pick up on them.

Over the holiday weekend, there was a bit of an "academic" tête-à-tête in the upper-blogosphere over President Obama's handling of the arrest, detention and prosecution of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Detroit "Underwear Bomber," as it compared to George W. Bush's almost exactly similar handling of the arrest, detention and prosecution of Richard Reid, the "Shoe Bomber," and other alleged terrorists by the former administration.

While there were swell arguments into which "both" sides could firmly dig their heels, as usual, the conversation that the people of this country really need to be having was shunted far aside in favor of the one Dick Cheney and Karl Rove prefer to be having...

The dust-up came in response to a number of blog items by Josh Marshall (here, here and here) in which he pointed out the obvious similarities between Bush's handling of Reid and several others and Obama's handling of Abdulmutallab, both of them using civilian criminal courts for prosecution. That, amidst a holiday spate of hypocritical Orwellian objections by Cheney, by Rove, and their predictable wingnut acolytes, apologists, and re-writers of history. In this case, Josh originally began by replying most directly to former Bush speech writer March Thiessen who proferred some nonsense at National Review Online's "The Corner" blog, about Reid and others being handled similarly to Abdulmutallab only because Bush had yet to fully establish his policy of "military tribunals" and endless detention for "enemy combatants" so soon after 9/11 Reid was originally arrested.

In Thiessen's follow-up entry at NRO, "Josh Marshall Strikes Out", he took yet another whack at his original thin (putting it kindly) argument after Josh fairly well decimated his initial case, and Rove quickly flagged Thiessen's second swing, via Twitter, as a (piss-poor) proxy for his and Cheney's own barely staggering argument, even as their cases were well-flogged, naturally, on Fox "News" and their kin all weekend long --- as if they were actually substantive.

Josh correctly labeled Thiessen's response to his rejoinder as a "Whiff!" and flagged, in turn, the more intellectually honest NROresponse by former Bush prosecutor Andy McCarthy in which, rather than attempting to justify Bush's own use of civilian courts for Reid et al by finding excuses and rationalizations for it, he at least makes the case that Bush screwed up in doing so. "These decisions were what are known in the biz as mistakes," avers McCarthy in tossing in his two cents along with the latter-day "terror war" politicizers.

That argument, at least, is "perfectly consistent," as Josh notes, even as he doesn't agree with it. But, he writes, he finds McCarthy's case "still one that can stand on its own two feet and have its tires kicked without toppling or falling apart," unlike Theissen/Rove's argument claiming, disingenuously, that "that the Reid decision was the right one but that Abdulmutallab has to be treated differently" for some unexplained reason.

McCarthy's honest admission of Bush's "mistakes," observes Josh, "seems to be beyond Thiessen's reach," and Rove's as well, of course.

You can unpack the dreary details of all three arguments (Theissen/Rove's, McCarthy's and Marshall's) on your own, as I'm not flagging any of them here in order to necessarily offer an argument for or against. Rather, I point to that particular discussion as illustrative of how far to the Right margin the entire "mainstream" public discussion has sadly, and dangerously, gone.

While it's necessary to rebut the Cheney-ites purely politicized, and despicably transparent torturing of the historical record, the trap that Josh has been unwittingly lured into is that the entire debate now becomes one of who can best and most "effectively" detain and/or prosecute and/or interrogate and/or torture "terror suspects" --- a rather puerile, and ultimately unhelpful "mine is bigger than yours" argument finally, it seems to me.

Missing entirely from that eminently Cable News-approved "debate" of "Enemy Combatants vs. Criminals," is the far more useful and important point that Glenn Greenwald, among very very too few others, made in his own response to the Underwear Bomb plot last week:

In the wake of the latest failed terrorist attack on Northwest Airlines, one can smell the excitement in the air --- that all-too-familiar, giddy, bipartisan climate that emerges in American media discourse whenever there's a new country we get to learn about so that we can explain why we're morally and strategically justified in bombing it some more. "Yemen" is suddenly on every Serious Person's lips. We spent the last month centrally involved to some secret degree in waging air attacks on that country --- including some that resulted in numerous civilian deaths --- but everyone now knows that this isn't enough and it's time to Get Really Serious and Do More.

For all the endless, exciting talk about the latest Terrorist attack, one issue is, as usual, conspicuously absent: motive. Why would a young Nigerian from a wealthy, well-connected family want to blow himself up on one of our airplanes along with 300 innocent people, and why would Saudi and Yemeni extremists want to enable him to do so? When it comes to Terrorism, discussions of motive have been declared more or less taboo from the start because of the dishonest equation of motive discussions with justification --- as though understanding the reasons why X happens is to posit that X is legitimate and justifiable. Causation simply is; it has nothing to do with issues of morality, blame, or justification. Yet all that is generally permitted to be said in such situations is that Terrorists try to harm us because they're Evil, and we (of course) are not, and that's generally the end of the discussion.

Despite that taboo, evidence always ends up emerging on this question.· As numerous reports have indicated, the Al Qaeda group in the·Arabian Peninsula has said that this attempted attack is in "retaliation" for the multiple, recent missile attacks on Yemen in which numerous innocent Muslim civilians were killed, as well as for the·U.S.'s multi-faceted support for the not-exactly-democratic Yemeni government.· That is similar to reports that Nidal Hasan was motivated to attack Fort Hood because "he was upset at the killing of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan."· And one finds this quote from an anonymous Yemeni official tacked on to the end of this week's NYT article announcing the "widening terror war" in Yemen --- as though it's just an afterthought:

"The problem is that the involvement of the United States creates sympathy for Al Qaeda. The cooperation is necessary --- but there is no doubt that it has an effect for the common man. He sympathizes with Al Qaeda."

...
Whether justified or not, we are constantly delivering death to the Muslim world. We do not see it very much, but they certainly do. Again, independent of justification, what do we think is going to happen if we continuously invade, occupy and bomb Muslim countries and arm and enable others to do so? Isn't it obvious that our five-front actions are going to cause at least some Muslims --- subjected to constant images of American troops in their world and dead Muslim civilians at our hands, even if unintended --- to want to return the violence? Just look at the bloodthirsty sentiments unleashed among Americans even from a failed Terrorist attempt. What sentiments do we think we're unleashing from a decade-long (and continuing and increasing) multi-front "war" in the Muslim war?

There very well may be some small number of individuals who are so blinded by religious extremism that they will be devoted to random violence against civilians no matter what we do, but we are constantly maximizing the pool of recruits and sympathy among the population on which they depend. In other words, what we do constantly bolsters their efforts, and when we do, we always seem to move more in the direction of helping them even further. Ultimately, we should ask ourselves: if we drop more bombs on more Muslim countries, will there be fewer or more Muslims who want to blow up our airplanes and are willing to end their lives to do so? That question really answers itself.

That is the discussion we ought to be having --- should have been having from September 12, 2001 on up through today. But it's the discussion that is not allowed to be had in "proper" circles which we've now largely conceded to the Cheney and Rove gangsters --- as Josh Marshall unwittingly does, even in his smart rejoinders.

While guest hosting the Mike Malloy Show last week (most directly on Wednesday's show, Hour 1), I raised some of these points after a week of not even wanting to talk about any of it, since it seems to me that making the Underwear Bomber famous makes as much sense as putting the guys who wanted to be famous for the Columbine Massacre on the cover of TIME magazine.

But by the time of Cheney's appalling statement on Wednesday, it became clear that this nation and its media and its sore loser politicians wouldn't be doing the right thing for the country as might have been hoped in such a situation.

So in discussing it all, I also took the opportunity to present a challenge to the Tea Baggers who have convinced themselves they've finally seen the light, and so have thrown in with the "revolution" of the Ron Paul-ites, and to the Ron Paul-ites who've foolishly allowed those same Tea Baggers to co-opt their own long-waged revolutionary movement. The challenge came on the heels of Paul's video statement to supporters on the government's too-predictable response to the Underwear Bomber.

While noting there is much I disagree with in Rep. Paul's statement, it seems difficult to dispute the following key point he offered which echoes Greenwald's. And where the Tea Baggers now believe and/or pretend to believe they're fellow "revolutionaries" with the Paul-ites (and vice versa), I'd love to see the corporate stooges of Dick Armey and FreedomWorks wrap their "revolution" around support of this theme, about which Paul and his supporters, at least, have been consistent from day one:

There's so much excitement about this, and now talk about attacking Yemen because there's al-Qaeda there. There is now some serious talk about what we should be doing over there, and dealing with the al-Qaeda, never addressing this real important subject of 'why is their al-Qaeda?' and 'why do these radicals get motivated in order to commit suicide and do these various things?' and they get motivated because we're there in their country, and then they organize, and the longer we're there, the more who are radicalized against us. So what do we do? We send more troops over there.

On that point, Paul --- like Greenwald who asked "if we drop more bombs on more Muslim countries, will there be fewer or more Muslims who want to blow up our airplanes and are willing to end their lives to do so?" --- is absolutely correct, even though both are saying, out loud, what those in the polite circles of Cable News aren't usually allowed to discuss, it seems.

And, of course, the more we join "their" argument (the Cheney-ites and Rovians) --- as Josh ably did over the weekend --- the more "they" ultimately win the "war," even if the good guys might otherwise win battle after battle after rhetorical battle.

In the meantime, my challenge for the Paulians is to hold Tea Bagger feet to the fire, and find out if they're with 'em or agin' 'em on Paul's consistent message: Get the hell out of the fruitless foreign incursions that ultimately make things worse, not better (or, at the very least, stop expanding them!). My guess: the bulk of the Tea Baggers want nothing to do with that argument and, thus, the Paulies should have nothing to do with the Tea Baggers other than calling them out, loudly, on their barely-veiled partisan hypocrisy.

But the most important take-away here is that unless we, as a nation, have now officially resigned ourselves to becoming "Israel" from here on out, forever in a state of perpetual war against ever-increasing enmity, the points discussed by Greenwald and Paul are the discussions that we should be having. It's a discussion we must and will have eventually --- and sooner rather than later if we're serious about ever returning to a state of normalcy, otherwise known by the cynics and hoodwinked and profiteers as "winning the War on Terror."

Brad, in your long post, you never once touched on the discussion we actually should be having. The underwear bomb was state sponsored terror against us. It's all a dog and pony show to get the sheeple to beg for police state protection (along with TSA screwtiny).

Hitler figured out ways to stop people from traveling too , didn't he?

What will it take for us as a nation to talk openly of the Facscist takeover of our govt.The recent unrestricted funds given to criminals in banking was a big tip off. No money for health care.

We are starting wars all over the world for resources without even trying to make it look legal.
Someone blows up his crotch and our "leaders" want to blow up a country. State media allows no voice of reason to counteract the madness.

The blending of the military industrial complex, corporations, and the corporate owned media. It's happening with the promotion of a war with Yemen. Even though it's been exposed, they still do it, as if it doesn't matter that it's been exposed.

You have no idea what you're talking about Brad. You continue the lies day in day out. You type and write as if 9/11 was exactly the way Bush said it was? BRAD....THERE WERE NO COMMERCIAL PLANE CRASHES ON 9/11!!!!!! The war on terror is a fraud. TSA, Homeland Security, Patriot Acts, mass murdered wars..... are all based on the staged and murderous lies of 9-11. You have sat here for 8 years now questioning EVERYTHING about the US government, elections, fraud, corruption, scandal after scandal.....though for some reason think that everything Bush told you about 9/11 on 9/11 was true and has never changed since (ask the WMD's in Iraq about that one?)

"When it comes to Terrorism, discussions of motive have been declared more or less taboo from the start because of the dishonest equation of motive discussions with justification....."

The exact same criteria must be applied to the start and events of 9/11. You must go back and ask the fundamental questions and verify PHYSICALLY every aspect from "passengers" to the planes.

Oddities of the origins on the never ending US global war on terror:

*None of the passengers used a credit card to buy a ticket for any of the flights on 9/11

*On one flight EVERY passenger paid CASH for their tickets that morning on 9/11 (amazing when its a cross country flight on a work day)

*If all the "passengers" from all the flights that "crashed on 9/11" were added together...it would not equal the capacity of ONE plane!!

*FIRSTS in aviation HISTORY......not one wing was found from any plane from any location! Not one single seat was found from any location! Not one single engine was verified....each engine was 6 TONS...is 9ft wide....made from titanium. The manufacturer has said its immpossible for engines to "melt away" and dissappear as has been promoted! NONE of the black boxes....NONE of the flight data recorders....and NONE of the voice data recorders HAVE SERIAL NUMBERS! (What that means is that ANY information garned or retrieved from any of the boxes from any of the planes on 9/11 is irrelevant and completely useless. NEVER in the history of aviation had that happened before or since 9/11 and it happened 4 TIMES involving 12 different boxes in one day?!!!!!

*Not one person or "passenger" from any of the 4 planes from any of the 4 airports drove themselves and parked a car....NOT ONE! Not one person out of 250+ passengers drove and parked their own car....EXCEPT ATTA......ATTA was the only "passenger" to drive and park their own car. Atta was also the only passenger to have a suitcase left behind (confirming his guilt?) and his car was PACKED with amazingly incriminating evidence involving everything he was "planning to do".
*NOT ONE single camera recorded a single video of a single "passenger" bording, arriving, buying a ticket, waiting around, checking in, going through security of any of the planes from any of the airports on 9/11....EXCEPT ONE?! ATTA! He was "recorded" at an airport in Maine on a different day and time other than 9/11!!!! That was the video shown to the world which would implicate Atta yet again....even though not ONE single other passenger was ever seen in any way on film. (Interesting to note that ALL the airport locations and cameras were being operated and controlled by the same Bush related corporations that were also in control of the cameras at the WTC's?)

Dana,
re: comment 7
Wow. Most of that's news to me. I wanna know how to verify some of that for myself. Especially the cash only purchases of all tickets.

Brad,
Even if Dana were wrong, nuts or worse here, there's far more evidence that makes the point stated in comment 7.

Josh and you are splitting hairs about Rove and corporatists splitting hairs on a bull who is about to gore us all. Wow too many metaphors. Sorry. Point is these arguments are glib and trivial in the context of what we've seeing. Are we seriously going to sit here and argue about what arguments are worthwhile as we ignore the most fundamental facts we all survive by?

Ok one more metaphor. Do you really wanna be one of the sheep when wolves have replaced the shepherd and his sheepdogs? And the wolves are making all the laws and herding all the sheep in obviously bad directions? And exactly what logic will work for such sheep when arguing with said wolves?

The root cause of the problem is America's unshakable support for Israel and until it is addressed things will only get worst .You cannot imagine what life is like in Gaza today ,the worlds largest prison with 1.5 million prisoners ,men women and mostly children.Talk about "state sponsored terror" .

You have sat here for 8 years now questioning EVERYTHING about the US government, elections, fraud, corruption, scandal after scandal.....though for some reason think that everything Bush told you about 9/11 on 9/11 was true and has never changed since (ask the WMD's in Iraq about that one?)

I see you're an "evidence" guy, Dana. Happy to see that! So your evidence for the above statement is what exactly?

Dissappointing Brad. The question is more accurately what single shred of evidence has anyone anywhere ever sited to support the govt version of events aka 911 commission report.

I imagine that would be disappointing in disscussion of 9/11 or in a discussion where one was defending the government's account of it. But as I wasn't, and was only defending myself instead against an inaccurate attack, I'm sorry that I disappointed you. Oh well. Can't please everybody.

This conversation became about 911 when praise for your proper credibility checks on all that Bush II nor OBusha admins have said was accepted and criticism for passive acceptance of of the 911 commission's report was rejected.

Dana asked a valid question (albeit long and filled with evidentiary holes).

Why is it that you accept the 911 commissions report at all let alone whole?

We can't even have a conversation about what happened on 9/11/01 without accusations flying around. Just about the only thing most of us can agree upon is that the official story is a lie. We won't know the "truth" about 9/11 for another 15 years at the very least, supposing there is ever an agreement on what the "truth" is.

When we go to war with "terrorism," we are actually interfering with internal ethnic/religious/geopolitical movements, and the people in those countries can see that our corporate backed state is supporting their local oppressors. The only answer is to stop supporting local hereditary rulers in the mideast and allow those people to direct their full fury against these rulers without US intervention.

That's what people did throughout Europe when they threw off their hereditary monarchs in France, in England, in Russia etc etc etc.

I should explain to everyone that almost every single time I ever went in to fix Brad's typos and brainos he cried about me having messed up some update he was trying to do. His tears were so pitiful. Heartrending. So I gave it up until we find a way to lock each other out while working on something. I know how to spell "decimate" and "puerile" and a bunch of other words—plus apostrophes and all kinds of stuff—but those tears just broke my heart.

Weirdest thing: those who did not write a piece can spot this stuff way more easily than the person who did. The person who writes it doesn't see the typos because their brain already knows what they wrote and it's hell trying to train it to LOOK at the piece while proofreading after that. I've reread stuff of my own forty times before I see that last typo....

And, in any case, this blather over which president would handle this which way just pisses me off in light of the fact that we're talking about FAKED TERROR, and there are witnesses whose accounts have been confirmed and enough of it has been gotten out in the MSM and on the tubes that it's pretty dickless and unAmerican to just ignore that part of it to do the partisan bickering over patsy prosecution instead.

Dana J. comment #7. You've provided a long-winded, highly emotional rant about 9/11 but you failed to address Brad Friedman's core question, to wit: What is the evidence that the underwear bomb was an act of state sponsored terrorism against us?

While I, for one, am not satisfied with the official theory of 9/11 and feel the gravity of the event and many of the questions raised warrant an open, impartial and "factual" investigation, your emotional rant fails to offer so much as a scintilla of evidence that would support the claim that the "underwear bomb" was the product of "state sponsored terrorism."

Even assuming that every one of the astounding claims you make about 9/11/01 are true --- as opposed to delusional --- how does that "prove" that the event that took place on 12/25/09 was the product of "state sponsored terrorism?"

As an open minded attorney, who operates in an evidence-based reality, I try to keep an open mind. So if you or anyone else has "evidence" that proves 12/25/09 was an act of state sponsored terrorism, please provide it.

wow.
comments 15,16,17 (ok not so much the part on copy editing - although it is wierd how hard it is to see one's own work well) are helpful and sharp.

The fact that this is so obviously all about faked terror when the only real terrorism going on is state sponsored terror (The US and Israel for the most part bombing hell out of folk while not busy kidnapping and ignoring habeas corpus) is what burns my toast. The part we're all dancing around is the state sponsored terror at home of our own citizens.

Granted it's much harder to prove our own governments are harming our own sheeple (Ok so it's easy to prove in Saudi Arabia and a few others.). Our own government home grown and home consumed terrorism is so glaringly obvious all the time though, that it more and more proves Naomi Klein's point in Shock Doctrine. Bush II and OBusha WANT us to know they're obscenely breaking every law they feel like breaking when, where and as often as they feel like it. They want us to feel powerless.

When we carefully avoid discussing such matters because the lies they feed us lack evidence against them, we might as well be powerless. What's the point of putting in time and money here and at Velvet Revolution if we are powerless?

From Brad: "I see you're an "evidence" guy, Dana. Happy to see that! So your evidence for the above statement is what exactly?"

I never said there were planes. You did. You are the one who has stated time again that there is OVERWHELMING "evidence" (which I have never seen you provide) that commercial planes crashed on 9/11. Just yesterday NBC reported about the terrorists aboard the planes of 9/11....NBC is of course currently owned by the largest military contractor in the world, as they were on 9/11. If YOU....say there were planes...meaning a tangible, verifiable, 100 Ton object that existed....then YOU must provide the physical evidence to back up YOUR statement that there were commercial plane crashes on 9/11. (Should be easy since there are over 2 million time-stamped serial numbered parts in EACH PLANE). This whole.."you must provide proof and evidence" for no planes is the same disinformation, pysop, mildec crap thats been around 911 Lie/truth Groups for 8 years now. YOU....Brad....must prove YOUR statement first since that is the statement and evidence as basis for the entire war on terror, the deaths and murders of millions, and everything from it.

Brad....what "evidence" do YOU have that commercial planes crashed on 9/11? (Keep in mind that video, photos and witnesses have never in aviation history verified a single plane crash...only debris does....similar to UFO sightings. (Imagine every witness, video, and photo of a UFO alien spacecraft being used as "PROOF" and "evidence" of a craft?!) After 9 years....not one single piece of wreckage from any of the 4 planes from any of the 4 locations on 9/11 has ever been physically tested, inspected, analyzed, or verified in any way by anyone! The FBI now says that NOT ONE piece was verified because "we all saw it on TV"?!!!!!

Someone mentioned that we may not know the truth for another 15 years. Get ready for a time warp.....There were no commercial plane crashes on 9/11. No one could ever have imagined that the world should have verified the debris of the planes...which was the start for the never ending global war on a tactic known as terror. How could I have been so stupid to "trust" US military media? They were owned BY the exact military corporations which have made TRILLIONS in the never ending war so far. Time warp over.

Brad...your attitude is much different than the last time you read this same information. What kinds of criminals would stage false attacks to promote never ending wars to kill and control millions of people? Probably the SAME exact people who would rig elections to get themselves in power to commit those very same crimes. 9/11 and rigged elections are hand and hand.

There were no commercial plane crashes on 9/11. Interesting to note that every single statement I made above is 100% verifiable and true....and the only comment I got was about the purchase on the tickets??!?!?!??!?!?!? Not one single piece of plane debris has ever been verified as having come from any of the supposed planes of 9/11.....and you want a cash receipt for a ticket for verification instead? (The reason noone purchased with a credit card was because the flights were not scheduled. The planes were never there to take off. ps...no take off records exist, no hand-off sheets from any pilots exist. No video exists from any airports. The supposed planes had been moth-balled for over a year before 9/11?!)

The ONE million dollar offer has stood for 3 years now. Not one single person, organization, or entity anywhere in the world....has been able to physically verify a single piece of debris from a single plane from 9/11. The FBI is now saying that NO ONE is EVER allowed to EVER see or verify the "evidence" because of "National Security". Thus I still have in an account with over One million in cash. There were no commercial plane crashes on 9/11. If there were Brad, and you and anyone else in the world has overwhelming evidence, then when are you going to claim the 1 million dollars? I offered Brad 1 million dollars for verifying something that the whole world accepts as concrete fact...and all he asks is about "MY" evidence?! I guess you dont need the money that bad? Just like EVERY relative of flight 93 who regected the governments tax-free $1.8 million dollar for every victim lost. Let me repeat...EVERY family member and relative of flight 93 turned down the governments money!!!!!!!! ps...posters may want to update their thoughts on the 911 Commission. The members have now publicly stated that it was a staged farce....though I doubt you heard that on your evening news?

But, back to the question Brad posed --- what about the dialogue we should be having.

Let's see, the guy who wrote an essay about that very topic after 9/11 - Ward Churchill - was fired, vilified, marginalized, hated, etc. Now it did seem as though he slipped in "justification" along with "motivation" which most likely racheted up the hate. But. You'd have thought he ate babies for breakfast by the time they were done with him.

However, we should definitely have that conversation now, but good luck with it --- you'd have to get past the "how can you even give the terrorists any sympathy for what they do --- slaughtering innocents!" argument which will overwhelm any attempt at reasonable discussion in most circles.

Ernie writes: "While I, for one, am not satisfied with the official theory of 9/11"

Q: In exactly what ways are you "not satisfied" with the offical story? Its nice to see you recommend an "investigation" its just that it wouldn't last longer than 5 minutes which is why there has never been any investigation into 9/11. The problem is that there are no plane parts that can verify ANY statement made "officaily" about 9/11. Not one. As a lawyer Ernie.....are you satisfied with the physical verification of any of the planes from 9/11? If so, why?

How about this statment Ernie: There were commercial plane crashes on 9/11. Would you ever post a reply that demands evidence and proof of that statement? NO. Because you've accepted that statement without ANY proof whatsoever?!!! What proof would you need to verify the planes of 9/11?

Ernie...I like your style of trying to keep the conversation focused on your particular argument regarding underwear bombs. Clearly peoples underwear are much more important than exposing the lies which could threaten the lives of over 1 billion people? Why one Billion? Based solely on the last never ending global war on a tactic called "evil".....death tolls are well into the billions from that 2000+ year old war.

Fred Burkes is an interesting guy who's written well and much on this and related subjects. This article goes on quite a bit more. I understand it's circumstantial. I also understand 90+% of a case is built on circumstantial evidence.

"The Christmas day Northwest Airlines flight scare has made top headlines and brought fear once again into the hearts of many passengers. Yet bizarre evidence has arisen from many quarters raising serious questions about what really happened on this strange flight. Could this man have been a Manchurian Candidate?

CNN News has provided some of the best coverage of the many questions around this bizarre tale. A December 28th CNN News broadcast begins with this comment, "So, just how did a guy on a terror watch list with a one-way ticket paid for in cash, with no luggage, a man who has been barred from Britain, informed on by his own father, how did this guy manage to board a U.S. airliner and allegedly try to blow it to pieces?".......

I think that what's chappin alotta hides here is that it feels like we're trying to sound willing to look at evidence when in fact we're refusing to look at anything that's not already ok'd by the corporate oligarchs.

I'm curious what we all think of points raised by Fred Burkes' aggregation of msm various and disconnected reports.

You have sat here for 8 years now questioning EVERYTHING about the US government, elections, fraud, corruption, scandal after scandal.....though for some reason think that everything Bush told you about 9/11 on 9/11 was true and has never changed since (ask the WMD's in Iraq about that one?)

To which I replied @ 7:

I see you're an "evidence" guy, Dana. Happy to see that! So your evidence for the above statement is what exactly?

Now perhaps you were too busy being angry at people like me to have read carefully enough, but the question referred to your evidence for the statement that I "think that everything Bush told you about 9/11 on 9/11 was true and has never changed since".

You've failed, again, to present that evidence. But, you seem to have made some up on your own out of whole cloth in the bargain! Cool! For example, you then went on to say:

You are the one who has stated time again that there is OVERWHELMING "evidence" (which I have never seen you provide) that commercial planes crashed on 9/11.

I've "stated" that "time again" have I? Cool! Then you should have no problem pointing out where I've even said it once.

I hope your "research" on 9/11 is a bit more exacting then the evidence bullshit you've decide to start slinging at me.

Brad....what "evidence" do YOU have that commercial planes crashed on 9/11?

Actually, I have none, nor have ever claimed as much. I have, however, tried to hold actual public officials' feet to the fire on similar questions. On air. Have you? Or are you too busy slinging bullshit and making stuff up about folks to offer anything of any actual value to the debate/discussion/investigation?

Brad...your attitude is much different than the last time you read this same information.

Neato. I'll look forward to your "evidence" to back up that claim as well. Try not to make shit up this time in the bargain, k?

I offered Brad 1 million dollars for verifying something that the whole world accepts as concrete fact...and all he asks is about "MY" evidence?!

Yes. You're evidence for the accusations you've made about me. Clearly you have none. I suspect that's something that folks can keep in mind when reading the other shit you present on whatever it is that you've decided you are an expert in. Like, for example...

The members [of the 9/11 Commission] have now publicly stated that it was a staged farce....though I doubt you heard that on your evening news?

No. I didn't. But since it was public, I'm certain you'll have no problem enlightening our thousands of readers here with a link to same.

On the other hand, since you seem to pull stuff out of your ass with some frequency, I suspect you'll supply no such link, no such evidence and --- if someone did present you with a piece of a plane said to have crashed on 9/11 --- no million dollars either.

Consider me unimpressed, but please keep up the bad work. It'd be swell if you did it elsewhere, however. Thanks!

This conversation became about 911 when praise for your proper credibility checks on all that Bush II nor OBusha admins have said was accepted and criticism for passive acceptance of of the 911 commission's report was rejected.

No. At that point, the conversation became about me. That's fine, but you'd best be prepared to back up your accusations about me when you choose to go down that road, as Dana J. did.

I'd suggest you not make the same mistake that he did. But, whoops, too late, I guess!...

Why is it that you accept the 911 commissions report at all let alone whole?

And you 9/11 folks wonder why nobody takes you as seriously as you wish they would? Perhaps it's because you have a fetish for making shit up.

If you're going to make accusation about what did or didn't happen on 9/11, or about folks like myself who have done our best to help find out what did (I'll assume you're unaware of the fact that I've called for a real investigation of same, that I publicly endorsed the recent NYC ballot initiative for same, etc.) then it would help if you get your shit straight before you do so.

Credibility is a difficult thing to hang onto. Once you lose it, as Dana J. now has, and as you are teetering on the brink of, it's very very difficult to get back.

How can anyone not notice these patterns? All of a sudden, a guy with a bomb on an airplane has ties to Yemen AND the new, more powerful Bin Laden is...wait for it...from Yemen! All these things coordinated at the same time in the media.

Get an "expert" who no one checks their background for the TV infomercial

Brigitte Gabriel (born October 21, 1964) is a Lebanese American journalist, author, activist and speaker on Islam and the Middle East. She is close to the Lebanese fascist Phalangist movement.[1][2]

Gabriel says Islam keeps Arab countries backward,[3][4] and teaches terrorism.[5][6][7] In order to promote such views, Gabriel founded the American Congress For Truth and ACT! for America so that citizens may "Fearlessly speak out in defense of America, Israel and Western civilization."[8]

She frequently lectures to American conservative-leaning organizations such as The Heritage Foundation, Christians United for Israel, Evangelicals and Jewish groups, and says she gives voice to "what many in America are thinking but afraid to say out loud, for fear of being labeled a racist, bigot, Islamophobic, or intolerant."[9]

Am I the only one who sees something on TV, and goes: "Who the hell is Brigitte Gabriel???" and then looks her up??? Or do people just watch shit on TV and say: "Oooo....look at what that 'expert' is saying!!!"???

2. There are numerous eye witness accounts, all of which substantiate what is depicted on those videos.

3. There are the passenger manifests, and lists of the crew, for each of the commercial flights, and, setting aside questions of the actual identities of the hijackers, there is the fact that after that morning, none of those passengers and crew --- including the passengers and crew on the flight the government "contends" struck the Pentagon and the flight that crashed in PA --- ever showed up alive. Their families attended their funerals.

So, tell me, my delusional friend, if no commercial planes crashed on 9/11 --- where did all those people go? And why haven't we heard from them --- or do you think they were all spirited away to some CIA dark prison?

Were all the families of all those passengers and crew in on the conspiracy?

Seriously, Dana J., have you ever considered getting some professional counseling?

I apologize brad. I will never come back to your site again. Your suggestion to take my statements, of which you have tried to verify NONE of them, and go elsewhere will be heeded. I know this is a lost cause. There were no commercial plane crashes on 9/11. Though you knew this already. You have always known. I will not come back to this site again. You have a record of my IP address and visits.

Despite your objection to wild accusations......when are you personally going to verify the planes of 9/11? You have always known about the big lie. The big lie is over. The world needs your voice now more than ever. Tell them....take the lead. Expose 9/11 and the murderous never ending war on terror as the big lie it is. Take care Brad. You and I have many common friends and will meet again in the future.

If I ask a witness in court if the grass was green and he begins to tell me that the sky is blue, I ask the judge to strike the response and direct the witness to answer the question.

Brad, in comment #6, did no more than ask for any "evidence" that supports the contention that 12/25/09 was an act of state terrorism. He did not get into issues of the cause of 9/11. Think of 12/25/09 as the green grass and 9/11/01 as the blue sky. Get the picture?

Yet, your comment #7 then blasted Brad about an issue --- 9/11 --- that had nothing to do with Brad's question.

You see, the problem with you self-described "Truthers" --- aside from a proclivity to ignore evidence --- is that your behavior is really quite boorish.

Despite your objection to wild accusations......when are you personally going to verify the planes of 9/11?

Oh, let me get on that right away for ya, Dana. I needed an assignment editor here. Glad you showed up just in time! Anything else you'd like me to go take care of for ya?

And, btw, I'll note here for the record that you didn't have the courage or decency to bother to either recognize the time that I put that very question, almost verbatim, to the Sr. Attorney of the 9/11 Commission, live on air, nor apologize for your entirely inaccurate allegations about me in the above thread, about what I believe, about what you allege make up that I "stated time again" (even though I haven't), etc.

When you wonder why so few are willing to take the suggestions of folks like yourself seriously, I hope you'll come back and peruse this thread and realize how stupidly, foolishly, arrogantly and inaccurately you've determined to alienate folks who might otherwise be on your side. Jesus.

Ernie writes: "So, tell me, my delusional friend, if no commercial planes crashed on 9/11 --- where did all those people go?"

There were no commercial plane crashes on 9/11. In your hypothetical question of "if" there were no commercial plane crashes on 9/11 you immediately ask...."where did all those people go?" Your heartfelt concern for the safety and well being of those 256 "passengers" is commendable. Though based on the treasonous crimes of the US military, military owned US media, and the US government......over 5 million people have been killed. Trillions of dollars have been allocated and spent, billions of people have been effected, millions murdered, tortured, and detained idefinately without charges, millions left homeless and spouseless, criminal agencies like TSA, homeland security and patriot acts spring up overnite harming millions, and billions of people will suffer for generations to come in a never ending US global war on a strategy........though your first question is.....What about those 256 "passengers" from a craft which has NEVER been verified?!!! (stunningly arrogant and self centered?)

You claim that you understand the military industrial complex and what they are capable of. Is staging 9/11 that far fetched? Take care my friend whoever you are.

(The reason passengers is in quotations is because until the planes are verified there are NO passengers....just missing persons. Thats why there has never been a public trial of anyone involved with 9/11 because the second someone mentioned "passengers" or the "planes" of 9/11 it would be objected to because NOT ONE SINGLE PIECE OF DEBRIS HAS EVER VERIFIED A SINGLE PLANE FROM ANY LOCATION ON 9/11?!!! NO PLANE....no passengers. No planes...no war on terror?)

Read Ernies post on Comment #31. Instead of planes and crew....substitute the words UFO spacecraft and alien abduction victims. Read how silly he sounds by using a standard of "proof" of an airline crash that has never been used before to verify a plane crash in aviation history. Only verifiable wreckage verifies a plane crash. Not video, witnesses, or film....regardless of how many angles there are. Only verifiable wreckage verifies a plane crash. There are millions of videos of UFO's, with millions of witnesses, and millions of missing persons that having clearly been obducted by alien spacecraft simply because they are missing? Only wreckage can verify a plane crash. After 9 years...not one single piece has ever been physically verified from any plane from any location on 9/11. Not one single piece.

Coming to terms with the truth that there were no commercial plane crashes on 9/11 will take time. Up until the 1400's...the earth was flat. Saying different would have you killed. The implications of no commercial plane crashes on 9/11 are as daunting in their scope as 9/11 itself. It forces you to reexamine EVERY aspect of history with a microscope. Nothing is off limits.

I promise once again Brad of my last post. I just wanted to type to this guy. Take care all.

I suppose you need to add in the facts about the embassy getting a head's up from his father, and that ISI agents, who look Indian to us, regularly do our bidding, work closely with the CIA and put it together that not just any well-dressed man in Amsterdam could get the kid on a plane without a passport. You can also have missed about the guy videotaping the kid calmly from before and during his lap exploding on him, and that might be affecting how you can say that your brother-in-the-Bar's protestations don't amount to evidence. And it's pretty flipping weird that not just one, but two men could get on that plane with stuff that would have made a bomb-sniffing dog park itself next to them. The fact that it is clear we're being lied to about this incident is another very strong point in favor of state sponsoredness. I don't know, have you missed all the screaming by "conspiracy theorists" about all the law enforcement entrapment games involved in just about every arrest for terrorism since 9/11 that it isn't now the very first thing you think of each time?

Think about it. The witnesses are all talking about other people obviously involved, on top of the almost completely impossible bit about how the kid could have gotten through after his dad reported him, and there is no other cogent explanation for it.

Don't you go giving me no legalistic stuff about evidence to convict the state on this. That's a cop out in this stuff. Don't you do that.

He was attending a LANGUAGE school in Yemen, one where people from all over come to learn Arabic, and the director of the school says he was a totally sweet, decent, mild kid. He's supposed to have gone to Hadramaout, where there is a popular SUFI school, from there for a few weeks. If he went to the Sufi School, it's for dead certain he wasn't planning to bomb a flea. It's pretty certain anyway, since he was so stunned and frightened and completely non-combative when they jumped him on the plane and dragged him to first class. The kid did not know his pants were loaded until it was too late. If he'd known it, he would've acted differently... and who the hell would have been videoing him out of everyone in the plane except if they were expecting something to happen to him, and expect that it wasn't going to be lethal.

Seriously.

I'm sorry to have to be talking about all this on a thread where someone's going to town on the "no planes theory" but that's just the way the cookie keeps crumbling around here.

(I miss the days when a 911 was a Porsche that had some good feelings associated with it).

Ahem....If I might be so bold, I'd like to comment on the topic of Brad's actual post. This should not be interpreted to mean that I believe the official story about 9/11, or that I believe Barry Bonds hit all those home runs without a little illegal help, or that I'm having lots of secret non-consensual sex with neighborhood animals, though I'm terrified from reading some of the previous posts that someone out there is just waiting to start screaming at me about something or other that I'm not talking about, don't believe, and haven't done.

Brad's original post is vitally important. The topic of terrorists' motives is taboo. Hell, the DEFINITION of terrorism is taboo. These taboos are widely accepted not only in the corporate media but I think to a disturbing measure by our culture at large. Never looking at the causes and effects of terrorism helps perpetuate and intensify the madness and mistakes of our current path. Glenn Greenwald had been writing brilliantly about this. Brad's post is right on, also.

It's called Terrorism: Theirs and Ours. You can find a transcript of it easily enough, but I recommend listening to the five parts of the lecture(it's 50-60 minutes all together with a little Q&A). The syntax in the transcipt is a little rough and you really should hear this man talk. He's a beautiful and powerful speaker and sounded like one of the sweetest guys in the world.

Thank you agent99. Sorry Dana you couldn't keep calmer. I'm one of those folk who agree with you and aren't quite alienated yet.

And Brad - wait for it-------------- I am wholly sorry. You were right and I was wrong. I assumed that since you gave such credibility to such lame terror reports on this butt bomber that you were letting GE and the corporate/militarist skate on other more fundamental issues like 911.

I'm too new to bradblog. A little further diggin and i got huge respect for what you've done in the past to bring out facts. Ok now that's done. Right? Good.

I did not make this about you. Hopefully the above makes clear my mistake in that regard. This is still about the first and worst overt and obvious false flag run by US wolves against US sheeple. The reason is that the underwear terrorist is just another in this same series and we're not gonna get one figured without the other (and probably the rest).

Ernie, in terms of 911, there's skads of info that makes your questions naive or disingenuous. FAA investigations preserve the site and all materials. This Federal Reg was violated immediately and aggressively at all 911 sites for no useful reason. Governor Keane et al have spoken to this fact. The buildings were specifically designed to withstand the crash of a heavier aircraft fully fueled and they did so well. Burning jet fuel combined with aviation aluminum does not make nano thermite. Steel buildings (especially those two - take a look at the blueprints and construction videos) do not collapse from fire. The WTC buildings are the only 3 in history (of many steel building fires of much greater heat and duration) that have ever collapsed due to the fire damage. Kerosene don't burn near hot enough to melt steel. That's why fire codes have required steel for decades.

Quote Loose Change some more - after watching it again. Avery pointedly showed video evidence those were not commercial craft.

OK enough details on 911 lies. This could and should go for hours. Somewhere else.

Brad, please lemme be an assignment editor for a day and site the conversation here as evidence. Getting a guest blogger (and not they likes of Jesse Ventura please) on about 911 is a good idea.

Ok back to the butt bomber. Agent99's on the right course. More and more witnesses are coming out with more and more stories that are making the government recant on more of their original statements. This one stinks as bad as all the others. Unfortunately the sheeple are not gonna get the discrepancies in a meaningful timeframe nor context, so OBusha and Brennan will have their excuse for USA Patriot 7.0.

Papers please. May we see your papers. Or better yet, how bout one of those electric bracelets filled with personal private information and a taser that flight crews hold the activation button on before each flight? Gotta love the retired US Generals calling for body searches on all brown males between 18 and what 28?

The apologies were sincere Brad. Take em for what they're worth. Keep at it Brad and 99. See ya in about a week. Work life calls. Peace.

God and/or anyone else bless David Lasagna. Greenwald and Brad are genius, you're right. That's no stroking. Didn't mention it before since I take Greenwalds, Noam Chomsky's and Eqbal Ahmad's point as a given.

I also recognize the likelihood of getting sheeple to understand these points through the filters that GE, Viacom and Murdoch so willingly supply and rule by.

That gets to my point of proving the corporatists' most fundamental lies to be so fundamentally obvious lies.

Does anyone really think the truth will eventually (or in 15 years) come out? Yeh, right along side the Warren Commissions sealed files eh? It might come out but it won't be eventually and it won't be without a little help.

Now it's time for workin folk to sleep. See ya all in a week with any luck at all.

Shouldn't we be proactive and plan ahead?
We've had the genitalia bomber, what about the rectum bomber? He's sure to show up. Them non-state terrarists are damn clever! The TSA screwtiny scanner (thank ya Jesus, let's all streak nakid to fight them Islamo terrarists) won't protect us from that. Immediately we should implement the Four Steps of Never Surrender to Terrorism. 1. Drop trou. 2. Drop drawers. 3. Bend over. 4. Spread 'em.

What makes more sense, fighting fascism or splitting hairs and playing word games?

It's clear some sort of planes hit the WTC towers. Too many witnesses insisting, too much video from different angles, and the burning plane engine on the street. It's 100% certain a large plane did not hit the Pentagon, and close to 100% it was a missile, not even a small plane. People keep making these smartass statements about what then could have happened to the people on the flight/s that didn't hit anything... and all I can do is remind people that Argentina regularly simply shoved people out of airplanes over the ocean. No problem flying an airplane into the ocean, either, for anyone determined to have their "next Pearl Harbor". Please. Some of us have spent too many years checking, double checking, triple checking and more for others to still be making all these wild assertions.

And, no, I'm not going to provide any links because there are thousands of them, they're all loaded on my dead machine, and anyone who gives a damn about actuality will look them up for themselves. The straight dope is out there. If you care, you look... always with a mind to what best accounts for the observables and who is chronicling the stuff, the veracity of the people making the information available. If you start out thinking it's just "conspiracy theorist screwballs" yer brain is blocked from the git and you get nowhere. You maintain your sense of decency and proportion, you get to fill in all kinds of blanks with real information. One or the other.

hey truthers, regardless of who blew up towers on 911, there are still plenty of muslims that want to terrorize us...they would all have to be saints and none of them even a bit radical or crazy, like our rednecks, for not a one of them ever to do anything direct at US after all the white phosphorous in Palestine, drones taking out wedding parties, indiscriminate killing of civilians in Iraq, depleted uranium all over Iraq etc....I've got no philosophical block against the idea of false flag events and the proven existence of agent provocateur but its naive to think no arab or islamic people have issues with us, and beyond credulity that none of them would ever act on it in a violent, terrorist, or revengeful way.

And to Brad's point, the whole reason people promote our foreign wars is based on the idea they somehow will make us safer...Brad's point does not contradict your world view...fighting foreign war or terror does not make us safer, thus: we should not be fighting foreign wars on terror....something which I think we can agree...

besides, what kind of email rumor is it that none of the standard businessmen on the plane did not buy their tickets with credit cards..not the "let's roll" guy the worked for oracle, none of them?!?! Show me a realiable source on that. And be very careful of being played by disinfo...from what I have seen, truthers orgs are crawling with all kinds of classic shadow govt plants

Following are examples of evidence about 911 from an architect and a former WTC janitor. I have heard both in person at length in MN:

1) http://www.ae911truth.org/
Nearly 1000 architectural and engineering professionals sign this site that explains controlled demolition :: fire, and that the NY tower collapses have all the characteristics of controlled demolition and none of fire.

Not to snap right back off topic back after David Lasagna's above well-writ, golden-in-the-hole attempt to take back this unruly thread, but wanted to add re: 99's undie-bomber comments.
She left out her most compelling CSI moment when within a day or two of this event she linked to the photo of the suspect's underwear released by the authorities - and they weren't burnt. At all. Not even a little bit singed.

Yes, I did forget to add in again the part about the barely singed undies, and that is salient as heck. I'm just assuming most people have seen that part and that the ones who are disposed to think honestly will recognize upon viewing those undies that something is supremely rotten with this whole story.

I'm taking the unruliness of the thread as a good sign that nobody cares about Marshall and Rove.

And the "syringe" didn't actually look like a melted "syringe" .Looks more like he was wearing "Depends" and his disposable cigarette lighter caught fire while he was playing with it in his pocket... ?????????

P.S. One 911 comment ,I wonder if the engine found on the street in NY on 911 has had the serial numbers checked against the two planes THAT DID crash into the two WTC buildings.Would prove the ACTUAL aircraft was the real one.

I'm taking the unruliness of the thread as a good sign that nobody cares about Marshall and Rove.

Just making sure, but you did bother to read the full post to learn that that was the point of it, right? That what Marshall and Rove were bickering about is the distraction?

I just noticed an earlier comment of yours which seems to suggest you didn't get far enough in the original article to learn that either. Anyway, might want to recheck the article, because I suspect you'd be likely to agree with its general premise.

That said, I've missed a lot here today as I've been on the road ALL DAY long, so could only keep up cursorily. Will try to review more tomorrow with fresher eyes...After the Green News Report, and after another coupla articles I've been trying to finish up while on the fly...

Right you are, Brad. I did not read down to the end. Only got so far before I hit skim mode and then meltdown mode. I would agree with its general premise if I were not beside myself that too many are letting this not-a-lap-bomber story turn into all these other arguments. I am really, really appalled about how few have been willing to headline all the SOLID stuff coming out that points away from this kid being alone, and very possibly not even a bomber at all.

You've been on the road. Everyone's been distracted by the holidays. So I'm trying not to go postal for another day or two, but it's time to snap out of it.

THIS IS HUGELY CONSEQUENTIAL STUFF.

The MSM is propagandizing us into new iterations of endless war, and there's this kid left twisting with a bunch of obviously involved persons seen all around him, to the point where one really has to doubt if he even knew there was anything in his pants, and it's getting NO play from our government and almost none from the press.

This is not America.

This is terrifying.

I just got done listening to Chris Hedges incanting about the obscene state of things—the man sucks as a public speaker, and it's too bad because he's brilliant—and he just said something to the effect that people defending the Democratic Party are traitors to their country... and... I'm going to have to say that he's got a really, really good point. Obama's been right out there playing the al-Qa'eda card as fervently as Dubya and Fudd ever did. Or there's the outright fascist part about federal prosecutors, Holder's Justice Department, acting like defense attorneys in the Blackwater gig that just got dismissed....

Hitting this information, the stuff coming from passenger Haskell and others, right away and harder than ever before is the only remote chance of beginning to turn this propaganda juggernaut around. We can't just gossip about it while they turn it into millions more dead brown people, and a total police state at home.

Really, you should listen to that hour of Hedges sententious pronouncements. There's a lot of stuff in there people should be taking to heart. The start of it is a bunch of shit about Michael Jackson, but it gets more interesting. Josh Marshall, for all the good things one might say about him, is vested in playing the mainstream—the machine driving all this war and climate ignoring and ceding of liberty for security—and, given all the givens, who wants to bother with that shit?

We could even look at it as Marshall helping Rove who is helping Obama. Yes, dammit, we bloody well could.

To the 9/11 truthers...you guys hijacking blog threads with your theories isn't gonna make folks believe you. I've been to a bunch of 9/11 truth sites...there is compelling evidence. But you guys trolling and spamming blogs with your theorires isn't gonna win friends and influence people...it only serves to piss people off. Also the fact that a lot of you guys are acrimonious and come off as downright unlikable just makes your task all the more difficult.

Brad should open a thread dedicated to 9/11 truth so these guys can reasonably and rationally state their case....namecalling and smearing folks that aren't hearing you just makes you seem ...well..kind of juvenile. And no one wants to listen to a bratty kid.

This nation is in crisis almost at almost every turn...getting the 9/11 truth out there won't solve that...

Maybe you 9/11 truthers should take some time off and develop some people skills...learn to listen...It would help your cause immensely.

This nation is in crisis almost at almost every turn...getting the 9/11 truth out there won't solve that...
Maybe you 9/11 truthers should take some time off and develop some people skills...learn to listen...It would help your cause immensely.

Second point first: Totally agreed. There might be a few disinfo agents here and there trying to propagandize thinkers against the 9/11 truth movement by portraying them as angry 12 year olds, but I suspect most of the 9/11 truth ranting really is the genuine product of our inability to listen to one another and to ourselves. Immaturity, essentially. Fear also. The fact that the three WTC buildings were destroyed w/ incendiaries is psychologically and emotionally traumatizing for many, and can lead to a downward spiral of paranoia.
First point second: I don't necessarily agree that getting 9/11 truth out there won't solve the "comprehensive crisis" our country and world are in. I think it's actually our best bet for waking up the great mass of slumbering, apolitical, TV-is-my-only-avenue-to-reality people. 9/11 was, in part, a mass deception - and it also happens to be one of the easier deceptions to uncover, since there is so much photographic and forensic evidence. And once uncovered, it is easy to explain why it matters.
It's just the beginning, though. I probably actually mostly agree with you - starry-eyed 9/11 truthers (such as me) who think that once the truth is out, we'll all walk into the sunset of a new utopia - haven't understood history yet.

Try and express 9/11 truth to an out of work computer support person whose job has gone to India....try explaining 9/11 truth to an unemployed person who is two months behind the mortgage...try getting the attention of a $8/hr diabetic Walmart employee with no healthcare...try explaining 9/11 truth to a retiree whose pension went up in smoke on wall street....or try explaining 9/11 truth to a city like Detroit that's looking more like Chernobyl everyday.

9/11 truth has a place in the discourse....but it shouldn't be the focus of that discourse.

@ Bluehawk
I hear you. There is a lot of suffering going on, and to many, talking about the laws of physics with respect to three building collapses eight years ago, seems irrelevant. Not even irrelevant, just insane.
That's the problem - it's hard to have conversations with one another, without sounding insane to one another (sort of the meta-topic and theme of the original post). Folks are (very understandably, but very regrettably) fixated on their very narrow worlds-of-pain. There is little desire to recognize and admit that there are huge forces at work in the world, and it's these forces that create peoples' conundrums. To gain the prerequisite freedom and flexibility to transcend our individual conundrums, we have to face reality. We are in the throes of a comprehensive crisis - ecological, financial, political, martial - but the root of these various crises is spiritual: our turning our backs to the world-as-it-is. I.e., our narcissism.
(I have, of course, oversimplified everything - I throw these ideas out as possibilities...)
You mentioned these conundrums:
- unemployed IT person whose job has fled to India
- unemployed person behind on his or her mortgage
- diabetic Walmart employee w/ no healthcare
- retiree whose pension evaporated on Wall Street
- Detroit, analogous to Chernobyl
And I would submit the possibility that 9/11 is a thread that runs through all of these. Everyone in these types of situations wonders (deep down) Why?
What is 9/11 about? It's about alien forces usurping America; it's about the global elite of bankers trying to establish a new world order, and it's about the Israeli-Neocon-military-industrial geopolitical agenda being implemented at home and abroad (to name two aspects of the same thing).
The outsourcing of American jobs, the creation and implosion of the housing bubble, the destruction of the stock market and stock market-tied pensions, the healthcare and wage crisis, Wal-mart-esque corporatism --- they're all logical and inevitable outcomes (or deliberate effects) of the activities and plans of the real forces behind 9/11.
I don't have links for any of this; this is a gigantic topic, and would take books and books. The point I'm trying to make for the purpose of the comment is this: There may be a unifying factor (or several inter-related unifying factors) (and Grand Theory of Everything, to use an astrophysics term) which both sheds light on all of our individual crises, and also suggests a way forward.
At the current level of our public debate about everything (healthcare, terrorism, our national debt), none of our individual problems will be solved, and they will probably only get worse.
We need to bravely face the root of our problems, and stop tooling around within superficial and contrived pseudo-debates.
9/11 matters - for everyone. If, as the evidence suggests, 3,000 people were killed in one day as part of an elaborate, but ultimately ill-executed hoax, then we need to call into question our very relationship with reality.
We need to turn off the boob-tube, and turn on the human stuff.
All of us, including the diabetic Wal-Mart employee.

Dear BlueHawk and Symbiont,
Beautiful exchange. Made me have very warm feelings for you both.

In my humble attempt to offer something to address your many and sensible concerns I would like to again offer this Eqbal Ahmad lecture. Yes, all the strands run together. Yes, we need to be talking about actual human reality. As the subject of terrorism is one of the dominant threads of everyone's existance these days, I think the intelligence and sense offered by this brilliant man contain some of the key pieces for the consciousness raising the world is crying out for.

blaming the most reasonably-construed-as-intentional failure to put the kid on the no fly list on a possible "turf war" between intelligence agencies. This is way closer to actually stating the most plausible and least palatable scenario than your link... albeit so lame you'd laugh if you could stop crying.

Something we shouldn't forget is that a big percentage of the people letting this lap bomber story sound like it was the big bad al-Qa'eda are doing so because they're relieved as hell this "rogue network" is sticking to so-called "failed attempts" instead of blowing people up again. It's like hostages bargaining for eventual release. People know what's going on. It doesn't get much plainer, but they think if they play along that they/we won't get blown up again to provide the big excuse for more of this looting and murdering for loot and dropping millions from the middle class for loot and making the rest of us toe the line on pain of taser and arrest for loot. People think if they pretend this is still America, not a fascist state like Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany, that that everything might work out right, that the bad guys will be sated and go away at some point if they just play along... and vote harder.... They probably don't like setting up patsies with this kind of regularity—or ever—but console themselves that it's better than these criminals getting desperate enough to really blow up some planes or more buildings. So they just stifle their critical thinking and go along, or let themselves listen to Keith dance around it and let that be good enough for them.

Whatever.

All of it is forgetting how many people we—our military and our troops—are slaughtering to corner the markets on natural gas and oil... to build and hold global hegemony for plutocrats. Still, this is precisely what our guys died to prevent in WWII, but Americans don't seem to be fascist killers anymore. They seem to be into squabbling over celebrities and deliberately manufactured and stoked wedge issues, "hoping" that if they just coöperate in whatever fashion seems most party-appropriate, this will all go away at some point.

While the story emphasizes a second person, the important fact to focus on is the witness's statements about how the bomber was escorted around security without showing a passport and while being misrepresented as a "Sudanese refugee" or somesuch. This smacks if high level diplomatic or (more likely) intelligence involvement. So, if this witness is to be believed, I think we need to consider the rather unsavory implications of these facts.

@ Dave again
Ahmad's lecture was really good - thanks again for sharing. This is a good introductory glimpse behind the fog of the absurdly named global war on terror. His policy recommendations are spot on (e.g. no covert actions; this is really key).
Deeper analysis, of course, can be made, for example, the link between globalized corporatism and state-sponsored terror...

Re: discussion on the Undie Bomber and whether this was a false-flag. Could be; probably is; the evidence isn't conclusive yet. In any case, it probably doesn't matter --- there are enough clear historical examples of false flag attacks sponsored by the US empire to demonstrate that this is the kind of biz they are in (so if this is yet another example, that doesn't tell us much, except that they're still at it, which we obviously already knew) --- while on the other hand, if this turns out to be a "real" terrorist attack (and our intelligence organizations are truly and criminally incompetent), then that doesn't imply any great shift in our thinking or policy either. There is no need to "get hysterical" about it, or to attack Yemen (from the standpoint of pure American interest, which of course, is irrelevant to the special interest groups who want to expand our war on terror there and anywhere). (Whatever happened to that good ol' British saying of WWII: "Keep calm and carry on" - can anyone imagine any Republocrats saying anything like that?) To me, what's really interesting is the public response to this perceived attempt at terror. The response of our "leaders" has been disturbingly bizarre (albeit predictable) - and highly fascinating.
So it heartens me to see a few Dems, and some MSNBC heavyweights, publicly lash out at the insanity of the Cheney-esque response.
I think it's becoming more and more obvious to people that the Neocon worldview is not serious, and that the only thing it offers its adherents is increasingly comical hysteria.

(oh - and as Jared Diamond (I think) pointed out, the Easter Islanders were still building gigantic stone statues, even as they were literally cutting down their very last trees and eating each other ... Cheney and his anti-Obama pronouncements, the Neocon call-to-hysteria in response to the foiled Christmas bombing ... these are just grotesque statues, built out of nothingness, signifying nothing but a tribute to the arrogance of an already-overshot tribe of people (the Neocons) living on what they think is an island (America can do whatever it wants, and there will never be consequences!))

While I'm sure you mean our society shouldn't be becoming hysterical about it, the way it's hysterical about it, I think we should be way beyond hysterical about all the young men we are setting up and torturing and holding without charges, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and the millions of people dead and displaced because of this stuff. Yes. I really think we should be wildly unreasonable about those things, but... as someone mentioned recently... We Must Be Insane.

@ Agent 99
I think the phrase we're looking for, instead of "hysterical," is "ALL FIRED UP."
I agree with you --- we should be totally enraged and shouting on the rooftops (in a word, ALL FIRED UP) about our government torturing and unconstitutionally detaining people and killing millions of innocent civilians and displacing so many others ...
... yet hardly care. A lot of us don't even know about these things, and for those who do, it probably just (insanely) feels unreal - civilian deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan - that's just happening in TV-Land. Stuff like that used to happen way back in History-Land and Bible-Land, but what's REALLY happening in the Here and Now is Tiger Woods is getting cray-cray for his bay-bays...

people don't give a shit about anything until it impacts them directly

Slight corrective: People don't give a shit about anything until they REALIZE it impacts them directly. The tragedy is all this shit that is going down everywhere has profound implications for all of us, but we've been rendered incapable of even thinking about what's in our best interest, much less talking rationally about it.
Sick!
Now I'm getting all fired up again...

All fired up would do, but I really meant it about the hysteria. The awfultude of it should, by now, have us outright hysterical against the Constitution breakers and warmongering fiends. It's so bad I suspect them of dusting us with soporifics... or... where's my foil helmet?... blasting us with stupid rays....

Thanks for listening to Eqbal Ahmad. Brad's post here was making the point that nobody's talking about the motives of the terrorists. And how obviously important that is and shortsighted that we're not. Then we here at Bradblogistan weren't talking about motives either, perhaps reflecting the culture at large, prefering to talk about everything else. I heard Eqbal's lecture maybe seven years ago and thought fucking hell, people should know this shit. THIS is what we should be talking about. And I agree, the analysis can go deeper but as an essential primer to understanding the topic Eqbal's the dude.

So thanks for giving him a listen. I wasn't getting much response and had begun pulling my computer's hair out in a fit of berserk hysteria.

Quinn points to circumstantial evidence in support of his "theory" that the "underwear bomber,"Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab" was not a terrorist; that 12/25/09 was a "false flags" event.

That circumstantial evidence includes the fact that Abdulmutallab was the son of one of the richest men in Africa; that he allegedly evaded security courtesy of strings pulled by a “well-dressed Indian man;” that "security" at the Amsterdam airport was provided by the same Israeli company who failed to stop Richard Reid, the infamous shoe bomber; that the bomb itself could not have been detonated by flames.

All of these facts do raise "questions" but none of them "prove" the theory.

While a wealthy background would be atypical of your "typical terrorist" profile, the fact is that the children of wealth sometimes do atypical things.

Take, for example, Casey Johnson, the daughter of New York Jets owner Woody Johnson and heiress to the Johnson & Johnson fortune, recently found dead at the age of 30.

You wouldn't expect such an individual to face burglary charges, but, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, Johnson, had she lived, would be facing first degree burglary charges relating to a break-in at the home of her girlfriend where she allegedly stole "$22,000 in clothing, jewelry, handbags, personal mail and other items."

It is quite possible that Abdulmutallab passed security with a wink and a nod, but it is also plausible that wealth and influence secured the seat without inside knowledge.

The fact that the device could not be detonated by a simple flame may simply reflect that Abdulmutallab had no formal training; that he was an unstable rich kid wanna-be whose attempt was doomed to failure because he lacked basic knowledge regarding the explosives in his underwear.

While all this talk about false-flags is interesting, it misses the core point of Brad's piece --- that there is a growing number of people in the Middle East who want to find ways to harm us because we, through the ongoing slaughter carried out by our government in the name of the so-called "Global War on Terror" have inflicted terror on them.

While I don't have a problem with raising the question as to whether this, or 9/11, are, indeed, "inside jobs," as so many in the self-described "9/11 Truth" movement believe, I am concerned that the exploration of that question obscures a basic fact --- that Americans must not permit these incidents, whether real or concocted, to translate into support for continuation and escalation of the irrational "Global War on Terror."

Would like to add an amen, amen and underline to Ernie's- there is a growing number of people in the Middle East who want to find ways to harm us because we, through the ongoing slaughter carried out by our government in the name of the so-called "Global War on Terror" have inflicted terror on them.

This truth needs to be spoken out loud and repeatedly in all kinds of company.

Motive. Motive. Motive. These are not robot/devil/aliens who want to harm us. These are human beings. This goes back to a previous thread's discussion about the possibility of including/reaching/understanding/finding common cause with the "others". In that conversation the "others" were our very own teabaggers. I think there is a similar dynamic at play with our "enemies" from other countries. They are not being listened to or treated like people who have anything reasonable to say or complain about. They are summarily dismissed with the shallowest, most non-thinking explanations. To consider them as human beings is unthinkable. To do so would be to acknowledge our own considerable contribution to the ever increasing enmity towards us so evident in the world. It would require taking some RESPONSIBILITY for the creation of a world in which increasing numbers wish us ill. Americans of all political stripes love to TALK about taking responsibility, but precious few of us actually walk the walk. Too difficult. Too scary. Too real. Requires too much change. In my opinion, that is exactly where we have to go. Right on up to and through all those psychological/emotional/culturally acclimatized obstacles. With our eyes, hearts, and intellects wide open to listen, respond, and create. And it's exactly where we have to enjoin others and "others" to go with us.

I wonder which approach to not permitting these incidents to escalate and perpetuate the GWOT would be more effective: making a hairy deal out of the hugely salient facts being covered up; or writing a blog post about how unhelpful some bloggers are about it.... I'm pretty sure moving the herd involves cutting oneself from it to a certain extent. One can't just moo slightly off key and expect it to turn the stampede.

Could you try comment #97 again in different words? Feel like I need a translation on that one. I think I've read every comment in this thread and thought I was having at least some understanding of where everyone was coming from whether I agreed with them or not, and I normally get you loud and clear, I think, but in #97 I have no idea (like to which other posts you're referring) what you're talking about.

Since it came right after one of mine I was trying to figure out if you were talking to me, but couldn't make sense of it that way. Are you talking to me? Ernie? Somebody else? Could you clarify, please.

I was talking to everyone, springing off Ernie's punchline in the comment before yours, David.

I'm saying that not screaming about the covered up involvement of at least three others, which points very heavily toward this being state sponsored, is much more likely to have the effect of ending the escalation of the GWOT than, say, this blog post... or even a bunch like it.

What explains a disinclination to get noisy about something as egregious as statements by passengers, that have been confirmed by other passengers, statements about such salient things and still not being addressed by our government or media? Who would want to be quiet about that? Why?

There are arbiters of a mainstream and if they don't open a path to truth for the herd, some won't cut themselves from it to open one, feeling it safer to just moo off key while being stampeded off a cliff. That is to say, to grouse about it without being too noticeably adamant.

Americans are the herd. The arbiters of the mainstream are the herders. The GWOT is the cliff.

My emphasis is on effectiveness against being herded off a cliff.

You can't be a bovine in the herd and turn it before it stampedes off the cliff.

But if you leave the herd, you get noticed... by the doomed herd, yes, but also by the ones with the cattle prods, those dooming the herd. In a fascist state this is dangerous. I hop up and down about how much less dangerous it is than going off that cliff, but apparently it's preferable to maintain dignity while stampeding off it than to make so gauche as to change course and weather criticism from those enjoying so much popularity in the stampeding herd.

We're given the gift of catching the War Party in the middle of another monstrous whopper, with the obvious goal of getting mass support for more mass murderation, but we give that a pass because... because why?

From what I've looked at so far on underpantsgate I just can't tell what the hell is really going on. I'm with you that the explanations so far don't jive, but that could mean any number of wacky, weird things.

There is so much craziness. You can't make up shit crazier than what a government, or an individual, or group of individuals will do. It's not hard for me to begin to imagine any number of wacky scenarios on this one. I have to wait and see if more comes out. You seem convinced about what the reality is here. I haven't been, yet.

In the meantime, I wanted to not lose sight of the original post because that's something that also needs to be pushed and realities there are not so open to interpretation. They're just not discussed much. But, indeed, let's all keep pushing.

But, no, a bunch of passengers on the subject flight are convinced of some facts the government is not addressing... publicly. In fact, one of those passengers is convinced the government is trying to find ways to discredit his testimony.

Since too few—and most saliently none with any following in the media, old or new—are making any kind of a deal about this, it will devolve very quickly into whatever the government says it is, with a few "conspiracy theorists" yipping about crazy stuff because they have this need to oppose authority or something. We're already there!

If there is no concerted effort to bullhorn this, the herd is still stampeding off that cliff... might as well stop imagining scenarios and just resign oneself to swallowing whole whatever the warmongers want you to swallow. This never turns around until the herd turns around.

Personally I think this confusion of the "facts" of the underwear incident is manufactered chaos.

All the while the MSM is pounding the drums incessantly about "the terror threat". The only thing people are hearing is "the terror threat" and they are tuned out to the gritty details that would unravel this false flag.

I like the analogy of being herded off a cliff and people only "mooing off key" not being enough to stop the stampede...great stuff there 99.

I too have been concerned about preserving my dignity...When vain dignity is what's killing us. Wanting to appear reasonable and rational when the vehicle (America) is hurtling into a concrete bridge abutment...

I've turned off the news lately...along with almost all external input to be able to soak this all in. The vibe I'm getting is...well it's not comfortable...it's dark and dire...it's 3rd act stuff...
This year is the turning point...my hope is that we awaken soon and turn to stampede the robots with the cattle prods...

You sound upset and I can relate. I've been upset the way(I think)you sound about a million times since Howard Zinn got me started years and years ago on this rollercoaster of going deeper. Go deep down and discover something you know would make a difference if known, come out high and start screaming. Oh look, nobody's listening. Oh look, people are annoyed cuz you're bothering their trance state. Rinse and repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

At the same time, I think you know that there are quite a few of us out here, I'd say even a growing number, who will never be resigning ourselves to swallowing whole whatever the government wants us to. Can you imagine yourself doing that? I can't.

Don't worry there will soon enough be another completely fucked up situation that will be spun at us and maybe that time around the critical number will be ready to turn with you away from the cliff and start on a new more resilient and life affirming path. Or maybe we'll all know how to hang glide by then.

p.s. Yesterday I ran into the carpenter from the carpenter's union who'd given me some reasonable reasons a few weeks ago for supporting Martha Coakley in the special election primary for Kennedy's senate seat. We had a nice little meeting on the sidewalk there, exchanging pleasantries as it were, and as he was walking away this Boston carpenter said something to the effect that none of these politicians were really gonna be doing it for him and if he had his way we'd be supporting someone more like Hugo Chavez. I gave him a big double thumbs up and an exclamation of solidarity. Chavez is one of my heroes. It was an unexpected validation of my own political worldview from a chance sidewalk meeting with a working class Boston carpenter. I am not alone. The whole exchange gave me a nice little shot of hope.

Has anyone read Naomi Klein? Shock Doctrine goes into many examples of the fascists hard at work. Studied and many times practiced work. Fascists in Pinochet's regime are a great case in point - actually schooled - at university - in justifying and continuing their fascist driven economy into the ground. Klein's as skilled and clear as Diamond is in Collapse.

My point here is that each of these messed up attacks on the herd by the neocon and neolib slaughter bent cliff drivers are easily transacted and exploited. Consolidating fascist power off natural and unnatural disasters is the plan and goal. Katrina = 911 = Iraq looting = Gaza blockade = tsunami = global climate change = any lame pretense of terrorist attack.

No apoligies given for bringin up 911. Mooing off key doesn't get it. And there too, blaming the rest of the herd for not caring when not effected doesn't get it either. Like that Boston carpenter and most folk I work with (making from $20k to $100k/yr) they get it. If not as detailed as the writers here, they get it. They also get that it affects them directly. They also know how little they can do about it.

Oh yeh protests in the street and all make us feel good and look great (if and when Murdoch, google or whoever choose to allow us to glimpse the truth - anyone google Tiennemen from inside China and compare the results to googles from outside China lately?). The mad herd drivers are expecting and welcoming such actions.

And yes some foreign victims of Western Government sponsored terror (aka corporate bombing and mercenary attacks) do become sincere terrorists bent on destroying Americans. And that is by design. It's the whole point of bombing and starving Gazans. What chance has the Israeli government without suicide bombers attacking the homeland? And to be sure the Patriot Act names domestic protesters as terrorists. Regardless of non-violent approaches.

So the question is still how to turn the herd. Marshall is obviously not interested in such work. He Rove and others are intent on keeping long screeds to each other like this one going so we can be much less effective at coming to terms with their false flag attacks (against ours and others' peoples) than they are at executing them.

Until we come to much better terms with each other and with reality, we won't come close to keeping up with, let alone preventing the fascists from terrorizing further and consolidating power more.

As for coming to terms, I think most are turning to denial... veering off topic, so to speak. Maybe reading the other Naomi, Naomi Wolf, would help that... or maybe the problem is that everyone's read both of them and denial is still their coping mechanism.

Until we come to much better terms with each other and with reality, we won't come close to keeping up with, let alone preventing the fascists from terrorizing further and consolidating power more.

The fascists are as consolidated as they can ever be. They're practicing terror in at least 3-4 theaters now that we're aware of. They're mentally terrorizing us with their "terror" alerts. They have complete control of the economy and media...
Fascism in America is as real now as cold weather in January.

This is the 3rd act...We're in a post fascist time now...not a "preventing fascism" time.
That's one mental note we have to remember...we're not trying to stop what's already happened.